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Friday, 16 September 2011

TNA developments - War Diaries, Home Guard and more

The following is an abridgement of an email from Roger Lewry, Archives Liaison Officer for the Federation of Family History Societies (www.ffhs.org.uk) , summarising the main items discussed at the recent TNA User Advisor Group meeting on September 6th (I've added a couple of extra links to help clarify some points):

New Discovery service

This is due to replace the existing catalogue and DocumentsOnline service (which hosts digitised TNA records) from March 2012. The development of this new service is iterative and feedback from users is greatly appreciated.

Based on its own work and on the user group's recommendations, TNA has decided on the following:

· The fields in the Basic search option will be name; DOB; address; place of birth; and Home Guard place· The fields in the Advanced search option will be National Registration number; former service (Y/N); next of kin; relation to next of kin; date of record

A commercial partner has yet to be chosen. The basic search will likely be free, with payment required for the advanced options and for the images. For the pilot exercise, payment will be required only for the images. All searches and images will be free at Kew.

It is planned that by March/April 2012 images for these will be made available free on the TNA website, including a working ‘reference convertor’ programme to convert old references in the indexes to TNA references.

Business planning cycle

The group was invited to feed in suggestions for inclusion in TNA’s business plan for 2012-13. The following ideas were put forward at the meeting:

· Examine linked records to Home Guard series for digitisation· Prioritise non-heavy use records for digitisation to open up the collections, based on onsite use· Ring fence funds for cataloguing Map Room content· Promote the link between improved indexing online and greater use onsite· TNA looking to find ways to plug the current funding gap, so suggestions welcome with the caveat that they cannot contravene terms of operation and reputation· Voluntary sector to be encouraged to help with cataloguing and transcribing when appropriate· TNA and the cultural Olympiad – Mel Hyde, Head of Press, to lead on this project, and she would welcome suggestions for other anniversaries· Paper lists to be retained in the reading rooms, though they will not be updated

NB: Roger is seeking suggestions on these from family historians within the next two weeks for consideration prior to an October meeting to take further.

Projects

A revised list of public service, cataloguing and digitisation project updates will be placed online end of September. 52 projects at present.

Major project announcement - War Diaries to be digitised

WO95 will be digitised to commemorate the centenary of the First World War, with 3-5 extra search fields to be included in the catalogue· Full details to be announced around Remembrance Day· 2 year project, biggest every funded by TNA; 4m images